The first 90 days in Doha: what actually happens
I moved to Qatar for work and stayed five years. This is the part the offer letter doesn't describe — the queues, the stamps, the fourteen-day trap with the hire car — told in the order it will happen to you.
By Shiraz Hussein · Lived in Doha · Updated
Before you fly: the two things that save you weeks
First, start certificate attestation before you leave, not after. Your degree needs a chain of stamps — UK legalisation, then the Qatari embassy — before your residence permit application can use it, and each link in the chain takes days to weeks. Many employers refund the costs; almost none will do the legwork for you. There are specialised attestation services that will run the whole chain for a fee — given the number of offices and postal steps involved, that fee is often the best money of the entire move. If you arrive with unattested documents, everything downstream waits. The full chain is laid out step-by-step in the relocation checklist.
Second, if you hold a UK licence, get an International Driving Permit from the Post Office before you go. It costs a few pounds and takes minutes, and the reason it matters is below — it's the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy against being stranded.
And bring passport photos. Many more than seems reasonable. Residence permit, medical file, driving licence, ID cards, school applications, compound gate passes — everything in your first months wants photos, and you will not always be near a booth. A stack of twenty is not excessive for a family.
Day one and week one: the machine starts
The good employers run a proper welcome: someone from HR or a government-relations officer (the person you will come to treasure) collects your passport and starts the residence permit process, and you get a local SIM sorted early — you need a Qatari number for almost everything else, so do this on day one, not day five.
Within the first week or two you'll do the medical checks: blood tests and a chest X-ray at a government medical centre, plus fingerprinting. It's an assembly line — busy, brisk, and done in a morning if your paperwork is right. Then the wait begins while your residence permit (your RP, stamped into your passport, plus the Qatar ID card) is processed.
The driving licence trap
Here's the one that catches almost everyone. You can rent a car on arrival and the hire company will happily take your UK licence — but the clock is already running. Qatar operates a one-week rule: a valid licence from an approved country covers you for just seven days from arrival. In our day the rental insurer's cut-off was two weeks; today's official rule is tighter still, and nobody rings to remind you when it passes — you're simply uninsured.
This is why the International Driving Permit matters: alongside your UK licence it covers you as a visitor for up to six months, for the price of a few pounds at the Post Office before you fly. Once your residence permit arrives, the news gets better — UK licences are on Qatar's direct-exchange list, so you convert to a five-year Qatari licence without sitting a driving test: eye test, paperwork, a modest fee, and (naturally) more passport photos, at the Traffic Department at Madinat Khalifa. In my day the temporary-licence route took multiple trips; budget the time either way, and don't let day seven arrive while you're still deciding.
The family wait, and the visa run
Your own residence permit usually moves first, because your employer is driving it. Your spouse's and children's permits ride on yours and can take noticeably longer. Depending on the visas they entered on, you may face the classic Gulf ritual: the visa run — a same-day flight to Dubai and back so a family member exits and re-enters before an entry stamp expires. It feels absurd the first time. It is entirely normal. Price a contingency flight or two into your arrival budget and it loses its power to stress you.
Housing: agents, commissions, and what's in the rent
Some employers help with housing; most give you an allowance and leave the finding to you. Agents will do the legwork for a commission of around one month's rent, which is worth it if your time is short and Arabic isn't in your toolkit. But for plenty of compounds and towers you can go direct to the landlord or management office and negotiate — and negotiation is expected, not rude.
Whichever route: interrogate what the number includes. Water and electricity (Kahramaa, in Qatar's case), internet, chilled water in towers, compound facilities — some rents fold these in, some don't, and two identical-looking offers can differ by hundreds a month once utilities land. Get the inclusions in writing before the deposit moves. If you're modelling the decision, the salary calculator keeps rent and each utility as separate lines for exactly this reason.
The car question: buy or rent long?
Doha is a driving city, so this arrives fast. The honest answer depends on one thing you can't calculate: how long you'll actually stay. If you're certain it's years, buying — new or used — usually wins. If you're on a two-year contract you're only 60% sure about, a long-term rental costs more per month but removes the resale gamble, the registration admin, and the risk of a forced quick sale into a buyer's market when you leave. Plenty of five-year plans become eighteen-month realities; price that honestly.
If you do buy used, Qatar gives you a tool most countries don't: the government's Metrash app can show a vehicle's history, including recorded accidents, before you hand over a riyal. Use it on every car you're serious about — the used market has good honest stock, and it has the other kind, and the app is how you tell them apart.
Month three: when it becomes ordinary
Somewhere around the third month the machine finishes with you: RP in the passport, ID in the wallet, licence in the glovebox, school run established, and the visa run a dinner-party story. The costs of those first months, though — deposits, rental cars, agent commission, flights to Dubai — are real money that the headline salary never mentioned. That arrival float, and whether the package truly leaves you better off once it's spent, is the exact question the calculator was built to answer before you sign.
Leaving is its own project — start with this lesson.